Animal House
by JadeRabbyt
Summary: The Fentons visit their fellow ghost hunters, whose small family of three lives alone in Michigan's tranquil lakeside woods. A peaceful vacation becomes a struggle for survival as Danny realizes that this family's young son is not what he seems.
1. Cord Discordant

A/N: Think 'Lake Placid' meets 'Friday the 13th', but in a well written, tasteful way (whatever that means).

Animal House

By JadeRabbyt

WEDNESDAY

Corduroy was ten years old. He liked his toy dinosaurs, picture books, and swimming in the Great Lakes, whose winter-chilled waters lapped just outside his door. He was homeschooled weekdays and went fishing with his dad Saturdays, and on Sundays he would cut out to take his own little boat within the restricted area defined by his parents.

Corduroy's parents drank coffee, read the papers, and fought ghosts. Corduroy knew all about the last, of course, but very few others did. Their house sat a hundred yards from the beach, trees on all sides; the nearest house was almost fifteen minutes away. With the exception of a small guest cabin and a boat house, the area looked as though man had never discovered it. It left his parents, Hal and Janice Kalen, free to pursue their studies unmolested. Sometimes, their studies involved Corduroy. Usually these studies were painless. Occasionally, they were not.

When Corduroy was four years old, an incomprehensible Thing happened to him. In the years to come, his memory succeeded in preserving only a small piece of the experience itself, and nearly everything which had occurred prior to the Thing evaporated from his mind entirely. He remembered floated in a tank in a room without windows, the nervous, smiling faces of his parents just beyond the glass. One small hand reached out—he touched the glass, pawed at its surface. Corduroy heard his mother's reassuring voice crackle through speaker; he watched her lips move into a microphone attached to a metal table armed with a million different lights and switches, the pink tint of the strange water rippling across its silver surface. He wanted out. Corduroy didn't like this water, so unlike that in his lake. It tingled warmly, and he could breathe in it. He wanted out.

They talked outside his tank, gesturing to something. Corduroy followed their motions and spotted another tank a short distance from his own, this masked in inky black water. His mother was angry about this other tank. She started shouting, but the microphone stayed off, and Corduroy could only watch, distraught and deaf, as his parents began to argue more and more violently. Finally, his father reached for the metal table and pushed a button. A dark blind came down around Corduroy's tank. When the blind went up again, his mother was gone, and his father sat at the button-filled metal table. His father spoke into the microphone—telling Corduroy he'd be out soon, just a moment more—reaching, slowly, for a red lever as he spoke. He wished his mom were there, and said so. As his father pulled the lever, serrated teeth glimmered before his eyes as a bright bolt of pain struck through every nerve in his body.

Corduroy couldn't remember what had happened after, but he was ten now, and much different than he was back before the Thing happened. Different in a good way, though it had taken a bit for him to realize it. His mother and father lived with him in the house by the lake, and he was happy. Corduroy liked his books and his swims and his toys, but more than anything he liked the Sundays when he could go out on the lake by himself.

The Fentons knew nothing of this when they arrived.

XXX

"Michigan." Danny rolled his eyes and unplugged his charged-up phone, tossing it into a travel backpack. "Why does it have to be Michigan."

Somebody sighed and there was Jazz, leaning against his doorjamb and leisurely sipping her coffee. Danny groaned at the sight of her. Jazz had her red hair combed neat and had already changed into 'plane clothes,' jeans and a shirt, all ready for the trip. "Because Danny, ghost-hunting isn't allowed in places like Hollywood or Hawaii. They're much too cool for that." She shook her head slowly at him. "You should know that by now."

Danny smiled and threw another armload of clothes into his suitcase. "Good point." He shared a sarcastic grin with her. "I guess it's not so bad. These people sound just as crazy as Mom and Dad about ghost hunting."

"True." Jazz watched her brother at his packing. She'd been ready since last night, but the plane left in four hours and Danny hadn't finished yet. Of course, considering teenage boys needed zero makeup, had 'outfits' consisting of the same dirty clothes for days on end, and didn't go in for much hygiene anyway, she figured it made sense.

"They've got a kid. He's in grade school, I think. It'll definitely to be interesting to see what he thinks of his parents," she continued.

"Tuck and I had some great movie tickets," Danny grumbled, yanking open a drawer. "This going to set new records for boredom."

"Isn't that what we said about Dad's class reunion? You know, the one with that big evil vampire ghost that ended up overshadowing Dad and basically wreaking unholy havoc?"

"Ugh" was her brother's only reply. Danny headed out the door, going for toiletries. He returned a minute later with toothbrush, toothpaste, a hairbrush, and a handful of other sundries. He tossed the stuff on top of his clothes and set about the task of making everything fit.

She took another sip of her mocha. "Are you bringing of any of Dad's gadgets?"

Danny laughed, bending up from his suitcase. "No. Are you kidding? Dad's FedExing practically the entire lab."

His hands slipped behind him to the suitcase where Danny, very nonchalantly, brushed a sweater over a gleaming silver canister with a green band around the top. The Fenton Thermos.

"Hm." Jazz left him to his packing and walked back down the hall to her own room, listening to the clang and bang of her parents in their basement lab. Were she to be perfectly honest with herself—and she always tried to be—the fact that Danny was on his toes made her feel much, much better about visiting another ghost hunting family.

* * *

A/N: Reviews will be welcomed with gift-wrapped packages of tinned meat product! 


	2. Jeepers Creepers

A/N: Presenting chapter two! Thanks to all you lovely reviewy people out there. (You may take your choice of Spam, pork 'n beans, or cocktail weiners.) Now, here's stuff what I should have mentioned before: these two chaps were first posted on the Out of Thin Air message board (Google it), and the peeps there were kind enough to give me the go-ahead for this here shindig. Everybody wave an' say hi to the nice message board peoples!

Animal House

By JadeRabbyt

THURSDAY

The bay looked as though something big and nasty had reared up on its massive haunches and, with a roar and a crash, smashed an angular hole in the smooth coastline of the lake. It had that ragged, torn look to it, with small indentations where claws or knuckles might have scraped against the sides. That the bay held the shape of a paw or hand strengthened the illusion that much more, and it was one more oddity in an already strange place.

The view from the plane couldn't fail to impress. To the north lay an endless spread of trees, a mat of spiky pea-green evergreens. Danny wouldn't have thought so many trees existed. The vastness of the place made him wish for the comfort of neon and macadam, but man's only impositions were a couple docks, two small boats, and a rough wooden cabin lingering at a distance from the shores of Paw Bay. Trees swarmed around the cabin and raced away into the horizon, marked by the sharp gray slopes of mountains. Behind the trees and the bay rippled the lake, which was an equally infinite entity. Big and blue and wavy and big. Big enough to hold Danny's interest for ten seconds before he went back to wondering how a rickety sea-plane with an engine like a wheezing hamster was supposed to land safely.

Fortunately, Jazz was petrified by that very same concern. Danny picked at the corner of the car magazine in his lap. "The feet fall off these things pretty regularly. I knew somebody who knew somebody who was in a coma for a few weeks after one of these things crashed." She turned away from the window long enough to serve him a death-glare. Danny held her gaze for a few seconds, but at last he had to smile. "It's true."

"It is not." Her white knuckles clenched the teal strap of her purse.

Danny grinned. "Sure it is. I mean, do you even hear the way this thing is rattling? We'll probably—"

"Danny, stop bothering your sister." Maddie twisted to face them in her seat in front, and Danny shut up. His mother was as tired as any of them after the long trip. "We'll land in five minutes or so."

The plane dropped lower as it approached a sturdy dock just outside the bay. From there they'd be walking along a dirt path to the house. Who knew how their luggage, let alone the lab equipment, was supposed to get to that cabin. Danny craned his neck at the window to get a better look. Jazz glanced at him, shuddered, and buried her nose in a technical journal on psychology.

The waves leaped up at them and the forest shot up in front of them. The dock looked too close; the water swept by too fast. Danny pressed his feet to the seat in front of him, not that he had to try too hard to do that. The plane inside of the plane was smaller than a bathroom stall. They'd go down fast if the plane hit anything at the wrong angle, but fortunately, the plane didn't go down. It bumped and shook and arrived at the dock intact. Jazz slowly loosened up.

"Just think," Danny said. "A week from now we'll be taking off."

She rolled her eyes and clicked off her seat belt. Long trips begged these kinds of conversations. "If we're lucky they'll let me toss you out on the way up."

Jack groaned and stumbled toward the exit hatch. "In the name of all that's decent, open the door!"

The pilot dutifully unlocked and opened the door, thanking them all for flying Air Dirt and Rocks—or some such thing—as the Fenton family just about knocked the plane off-balance trying to escape from the metal box. At length they sorted themselves out and the pilot crept back into his seat, shut the door again, and started to take off. No way out now.

He shouldn't bother about that, Danny reminded himself. These people did have a kid, the thermos he'd thrown in his carry-on backpack, and if nothing else, there'd be swimming. He swung his arms and shifted his legs, stretching. A light blanket of fog seeped up to the beach, lapping like a friendly animal at the dirt and sand there. Into the trees lay a misty darkness. Danny started to wonder what kind of people they were visiting. The place was creepy in a way he couldn't explain. Nothing screamed danger, but—

"Long time no see!" Jack shouted pleasantly. People trotted forward from the other end of the dock, and one of them raised a hand in greeting.

These must be the Kalens, and Corduroy must be the shrimp trotting along ahead and between the two parents. The edges of his bowl cut curled inward, and he was light-skinned and cheekily bouncy: cute to the point of irritating, but definitely normal. The father was Hal, Danny remembered, and where he'd expected somebody slightly goofy, maybe a little like Santa Claus on a moderately successful diet, there stood a guy who looked like he had bridge cables instead of muscles installed in his arms. Not buff, but very rigidly bound and controlled in the smooth step of his stride and the measured swing of his straight arms. Nevertheless, the expression on his thin face appeared happy enough with the Fentons. His wife Janice had the same light blonde hair as her son bound in a long ponytail.

She gushed with pleasure at their visit. "So happy to see you again!" She embraced Maddie, smiling warmly. "How was the trip?"

"Great, just fine. We got past the airports and everything just fine."

"Hal! How've you been doing? I haven't seen you since…" Jack paused. "Well, since freshman year in college!"

Danny and Jazz exchanged a glance. They didn't exactly have joyous memories of the last bitter college reunion.

"We've been doing alright." Hal folded his hands neatly behind him. "The research is going better than ever, actually. Janice and I are delighted to have your help." Hal's cool voice gave the same impression as his physique, but he looked like an OK guy to Danny.

"I'm so glad you guys came out!" Corduroy caught both Danny and Jazz in a hug with his small arms. His gray-blue eyes glimmered up at them. "I don't get to see other kids much, but we can all play now!"

Jazz patted his head. "You're Corduroy?"

He grinned. "Yes. And you're Jazmine and Danny, is what my parents say."

"You can call me Jazz."

So far, so good. Danny's earlier misgivings must have been a false alarm. "So you just live out here, without any roads or anything?"

Corduroy nodded. "That's right. My parents have a lab under our cabin."

"Though it's really big enough to be a house," Janice interposed. She cleared her throat. "We've got enough room for everybody, so don't worry about that."

Jack laughed. "Especially since I'll probably want to sleep in the basement. I hear you guys have built some top-of-the-line stuff."

"That's right." Hal smiled. "We have."

The adult Kalens lifted what luggage had managed to fit in the plane and helped Danny's parents heft it down the dirt forest path, littered with leaves from the wilting trees above. Corduroy darted around Danny and Jazz, bragging of all the toys he had and all the things they could do. The lake was open for swimming, and the woods were full of all kinds of climbing trees and hollow logs if you knew where to look. "And you and me can play," he said to Danny. "You're just like me."

Danny didn't notice, but Hal slowed his pace just the slightest bit up ahead.

"I guess I am." Cord probably hadn't had any friends over in years, assuming he had friends this far out. For all the embarrassment Danny's parents had caused him, he'd take that any day over this kind of isolation. _Almost_ any day, at least.

They reached the cabin, which was indeed more like a house. Corduroy had a room under the tented roof, and Janice had emptied a workroom for Jazz and Danny, although Danny would rather room with Corduroy. There was enough room and both sets of parents were agreeable, so Danny climbed up the ladder at the end of the central hallway and made himself comfortable. The ceiling slanted at the sides and was a foot lower than it should have been, but otherwise it was acceptable. The skylights were hard to beat—they gave an open view of the trees and sky above, said Corduroy, because the roof rose above the thick mist at night.

Danny's parents took the guest room across the hall from Jazz, and everybody miraculously liked where they roomed. Danny had just finished throwing down a sleeping bag, his backpack, and one small suitcase when Hal lifted the trap door and climbed halfway into the room, his feet still resting on the ladder.

"You boys going swimming?"

Cord had suggested that, and as cold as the waters looked Danny didn't plan on turning the offer down. Three hours in a plane took a lot out of a person. "I planned on it."

"Well, be careful. Danny, you should know that we have some pretty delicate experiments running around here, and most of them are in the basement." Hal shot a tight smile at Danny. Danny wondered about the 'most of them'. "Whatever Cord says, do it. He knows the area like the back of his hand, and he'll make sure you don't get hurt. Right Cord?"

Corduroy nodded solemnly. "Yes Dad."

"We're not going to have any accidents, are we? You'll follow the rules we set?"

"Yes Dad. Rules rule." The kid recited the phrases like a litany.

Hal shook his head at Danny's decidedly worried expression. "Don't worry. We let Corduroy take the boat out sometimes," he explained. "The lake is deep and cold as an icebox at this time of year, so you have to be careful."

"Oh. That makes sense." Maybe Hal seemed odd to Danny because his own father was so… unique. Unique was a good word for it.

Hal wished the two of them a good time and descended to the lower floor. Danny and Corduroy jumped into their suits and clattered down the rungs of the ladder. Before they left, Danny ducked into Jazz's sterile white room with its single dresser and springy cot, where he met her shuffling through her clothes. "Hey Jazz, we're going swimming. Want to come?"

She looked up from her soft wheelie-chair. The room looked small, but a large window made it comfortable. "I think I'll stay here and unpack. Maybe tomorrow."

Danny shrugged. "Suit yourself." He turned to leave but was stopped by a call from Jazz.

"Can I see you alone for a minute?"

Danny looked down at the shorty next to him. Cord fidgeted obliviously. "Um, why?"

She gave him a look. "Come in and shut the door."

If he didn't hear about whatever this was now, she'd only bug him later. Danny sighed and did as she asked. "What is it?"

"There's something wrong with Corduroy." Danny laughed, but Jazz was utterly serious. She frowned on his levity. "He should be taller, and his mental processes should be more sophisticated for his age. It's probably nothing, since there are genetic anomalies that can do that kind of thing, but just be aware of it, alright? He's probably sensitive, you know."

Leave it to Jazz to bring up something like this. "I think he's pretty cool. I mean, maybe Cord is a little slow, but you're the only one who noticed."

Jazz glanced at the door. "Probably. But I still thought you should be aware of it."

"Mr. Kalen just gave us a lecture on the dangers of boating. If you're finished, I'll just—"

Jazz lit up. "Did he do anything weird?"

"Who, Mr. Karlen? Why?"

Jazz rested her hand on a journal on her dresser. "I've never seen such a person before. He's… weird. Like one of those Buddhist monks you read about. I've never been able to observe them before."

If there was one thing Kalen did not remind Danny of, it was a Buddhist monk. "O-Kaaay…" Danny reached for the doorknob. "You go study the natives, but Cord and I will be at the beach."

Danny escaped the lair of Jazz and bolted out the door and followed Corduroy down the well worn path to the beach. Cord raced down the sand, his feet kicking up puffs of sand as he went. He jumped into the water like it was a heated pool. "Come on in!"

Danny followed suit, but he had to shriek when the water hit him. His face promptly began to turn blue, but the water was up to his stomach and he couldn't just leap back out. "The water's g-g-great."

"It is!" Cord certainly wasn't bothered. He was swimming around like a fish with gills, dipping his whole body underwater to scour the bottom before popping up again. "I go swimming here all the time."

"Really?" Danny gave himself a minute to adjust, but that minute did nothing but bring him that much closer to hypothermia. Or possibly frostbite. "I don't know. This feels a little cold to me."

Corduroy laughed and splashed Danny's face. Danny began moving back toward the shore, trying not to run too fast. "Aw, that's the same thing my parents say," Corduroy called after him. "They say it's because I'm young. I'm supposed to take the cold easier than older people."

"That's probably true." Danny sat down on a rock. After that water, the misty atmosphere felt like a microwave. Corduroy smiled smugly, the water up to his neck. Danny looked beyond him and saw something flip in the water farther out. "Are there fish in here?"

Cord nodded. "All kinds of 'em."

XXX

"So how did you guys get out here, anyway?" Jack stabbed a chunk of catfish off his plate and stuffed it in his mouth. "Isn't this supposed to be national forests, or something?"

Janice smiled. They sat around the living room since the table wasn't big enough for seven, but they had managed to arrange a circle of sorts. Everybody was enjoying the fish she'd made, smeared with lemon and butter and some spices that gave it a zesty taste. "Techinically, yes. But we're here on a grant from the DoD."

Jazz put her fork down, and Danny pricked up his ears. "The Department of Defense?" Jazz's mouth dropped open a little bit. "You guys are working for the military?" Jack and Maddie were paying attention to this one as well. Only Corduroy continued to savor his fish.

"Yes." Hal wiped his mouth with a napkin. "Don't be worried. We're just a backwoods project somebody thought might be a good idea."

"He's right," Janice affirmed. "They don't even ask for our research. They just put us on so they have something to tell the newsies when some kind of ghost attacks. The whole 'we have a division working night and day on the problem' shpeal. Nonsense, of course." She shook her head and took a drink of water from her glass. "Meanwhile, we get more money than we know what to do with."

"Is that so?" Maddie was sure that whatever supplies they needed would have to be airlifted in, and that kind of support couldn't be cheap. "You guys don't give them anything at all and they just pay you for nothing?"

"That's not exactly how it goes." Hal grinned tolerantly at his wife. "We show them our basic research once a month. They never complain."

"What kind of research do you guys do out here?" They hadn't let Jack into the lab. Tomorrow, the Kalens had said, but Jack was curious. "There can't be many ghosts in a place this disserted."

Janice stole a glance out the window. "You'd be surprised."

"We're involved in the animal kingdom, actually. Animal spirits." Hal smiled at their amazement. "You guys didn't think of that?"

"Well, we have," Maddie admitted. "But it's not exactly our area."

"We do mostly catch and release." Jack laughed at his own joke, and everybody pretended to be impressed with his clever pun on their dinner.

"That might be helpful for us," murmured Janice. "You say you're shipping the equipment?"

"It should've been here today." Maddie glared momentarily at the ceiling, chastising the invisible pilots. "I guess it'll have to be tomorrow. You guys are welcome to take a look at our things when they get here. Like Jack said, we can catch and contain ghosts, and we can easily return them to the Ghost Zone."

"Mom and Dad can make animal people." Cord continued snarfing his fish as if everybody's parents could make 'animal people'.

Jack smirked at Hal. "Care to explain that?"

"Tomorrow, I promise. Corduroy is basically correct, though. My wife and I have been working on separating various animals from their spirits and converting their energy into forms useful for homo sapiens."

Maddie leaned back, impressed. "I can't wait to see what you've done."

"Are any of the spirits dangerous?"

Hal glanced askance at Danny. "Of course not. We're not fools."

"It's nothing personal, Mr. Kalen. We're just used to things going horribly, terribly wrong back in Amity Park," Jazz added.

"Well, you kids can relax. Everything we keep here is completely controlled." Hal chuckled. "They are, after all, only animals."

Janice looked a little hesitant at her husband's last statement. She looked about to speak but changed her mind. Jazz noticed it and challenged her with a pointed look to speak, but Janice shook her head dismissively. Don't worry. It's nothing.

XXX

Jazz woke up and it was dark outside. She shot up in her cot and listened. The travel alarm clock on her dresser recorded 3:07 in bright red numbers that lit the dresser and a small part of the room in a thin red glow. The darkness outside hung like a shroud, utterly impenetrable, squeezing in around her Through some mix of mist and shadow, she couldn't see anything except her alarm clock on the dresser. Jazz could have sworn, however, that she'd heard a low, tremulous growl.

She stumbled into her suitcase and extracted a small flashlight, usually used for reading. Jazz clutched it to her chest and stood rigid, facing the window. She didn't care what the Kalens' said, and she didn't care what Danny thought. This place was one step short of a dance, and she didn't like it. Still, it was true that everything looked evil at this time of night. Jazz made her way over to the window and peered out, keeping her face a foot or two away from the glass. If something broke in, she wanted to have some wiggle room. Jazz turned the bright clock on its face. If the darkness in her room could be made to match the darkness outside, then she could observe unobserved.

A minute passed. Jazz didn't move, and neither did her lightless flashlight. Finally she succumbed to curiosity and, moving slowly, clicked on the light and pointed it out into the night. The mist lit up in a solid white sheet, but she still couldn't see a thing. Minutes passed, and nothing moved or crunched or growled, not even a breath of wind rustled the branched. Later, she would think that such a silence was unusual for a forest, but at the moment the silence reassured her. She must have dreamed the growl. This wouldn't be the first time that vivid dreams had waked her, though this was definitely one of the stranger times, if that was the case. Jazz couldn't remember having a dream, only the thick sharp snap of a branch followed by a deep, thundering noise. She took one last look at the window and saw an enormous silver lizard's eye squinting back at her.

The hard gray eye had one black pupil in its middle. The breath of the monster formed a cloud on the window. From red serrated teeth dangled the neck of a deer, its severed artery still belching dark streams of dark blood across its own mottled white breast. The deer stared unblinking into the woods, held in the thick, foaming jaws of something completely unknown to Jazmine Fenton. By the time she had gathered her breath for a scream, the monster had disappeared. She screamed anyway.

The house blinked awake in an instant. Jack and Maddie arrived first, with Hal and Janice on their tails. The roof thumped as Danny and Corduroy raced for their ladder.

"What's wrong? What did you see?" Maddie had her in her arms. Jazz couldn't stop staring at the window. It felt like her eyes would pop out of their sockets, but Jazz couldn't look away.

"A thing…" She gulped a breath. "There was a thing. It was in the window. A deer…" Her jaw worked. Was she awake, or was this a dream? She knew in her gut it had been real. "It had a deer. The deer was dead, and there was blood." Jazz saw Danny begin to edge toward the door, but she shook her head at him. Maybe he didn't know that she knew about his freelancing, but thankfully he had enough sense to take the hint and stay put.

Cord rushed to the window and stared out, pressing his nose to the glass. "I guess we got hungry." He looked pleadingly at Hal, who for the first time since the Fentons' arrival, did not look composed at all. "We didn't mean it! We must have gotten hungry."

Hal scowled at Corduroy. "Get back to bed. We'll discuss this extensively in the morning." Cord blushed deeply and sulked from the room.

"'We'?" Jazz's mouth twisted with the word.

"Our son has a disability. He gets confused with his language sometimes, saying 'we' when he meant 'he'." Janice licked her lips. "It's nothing."

"The shrinks tell us he has a bad brain that way," Hal grumbled. Janice frowned and elbowed him discreetly.

Jazz stared at the two of them, then back at the window. Somebody here had a screw loose, and she was forty percent certain that it wasn't her. "I'd like to sleep in the living room, if that's alright."

Of course it was alright, they said. Pillows and bedding were brought and arranged on the couch, along with water and a couple crackers in case she was hungry. Jazz assured them that if there was one thing she was not, it was hungry. The adults retreated to the kitchen where they spoke in hushed, accusatory tones, which was just fine with Jazz. The last thing she wanted to do at this point was get questioned, and she'd seen enough weird stuff in Amity to let her own questions wait for sunup. The adults let her alone, but Danny hung around as Jazz slumped down on the couch.

"You're sure you're okay?" Jazz said that she was. "Was it a ghost or something?"

She held his eyes. "The thing I saw was not a ghost. It was flesh and blood." _And bloodied, _she added silently. "But it wasn't natural either, it had an intelligent look…" Jazz tried to be as clear as she could, but she hadn't been able to study the thing. The deer in its jaws had pretty much compromised her powers of observation. With the mist and the terror, she hadn't even seen the color of its hide, only that bright orange iris. "I don't know what it was, but I hope you know that these people probably put it out there."

Danny chewed his lip. "Probably." He looked up at the roof. "I'm keeping my eye on Cord, that's for sure."

"I'd worry about Dad's college chum Hal before I'd worry about the squirt." She didn't even want to think about these people's ties with the military.

The adults filed back to the room from the kitchen, and Danny retreated to his loft while Jazz tried to get to sleep. As frightened as she'd been, it wasn't too hard for her to drop off. Her brother was Public Enemy No. One, also known as Public Defender No. One. Her parents were competent, and her mother never went anywhere without an arsenal of devices squirreled away in every conceivable pocket of her jumpsuit. Dad at least meant well, and in a fist fight, her parents would beat the crap out of those two Kalens. If that monster hadn't attacked her when she was most vulnerable, then it probably wouldn't attack at all. Besides, the thing had just killed, and animals didn't kill for fun.

Thus it was that Jazmine was able to talk herself into tranquility, and then into an even slumber.

* * *

A/N: Bwa ha ha ha ha. Review! (Today's virtual bribe is... Wonka Bars.) 


	3. Signs

A/N: And thus did JadeR break her record for chapter length and singlehandedly double the length of her story. We got some background info in the first bit and lots of juicy fun in the next bit, so don't freak out at the length. Stick around, eat your complimentary Wonka Bars, and enjoy.

Animal House

By JadeRabbyt

FRIDAY

"There was definitely something here, I'll give you that much." The blood, dried black and crusted, lay splattered on the ground outside Jazz's window where the thing had stood the night before. Hal nudged a broad leaf holding part of the dried pool. "Probably from the deer. Too bad. We might have analyzed the DNA if it had been the beast."

This morning was nothing like those in Amity Park. It was eight o'clock and the mist still hadn't dissipated. The air smelled of pine and wet earth, missing was the noise of traffic and the light reek of smog, the honking of horns replaced by the fog-damped whistles and twitters of birds high up in the trees. Still, all things considered, Danny couldn't say he liked the change. He had gotten up with his dad and Mr. Kalen to investigate the monster; his sister was sleeping late; Cord sat inside doing home school work, and Mrs. Kalen was busy making breakfast in the house. Outside, leaves rustled to the ground as the wind nipped at the boughs overhead. Visibility had risen to around thirty or forty feet, but the vision of peace seemed a guise of future evil. The poor light and mist-muted rustlings sent chills up his spine.

"What kind of animals hang out around here? Is there anything that could have been mistaken for the… thing?"

Hal shook his head. "We get some bears, and Janice said she saw a wolf a couple years ago, but there's nothing I know of that might have done this."

"Anything in your labs?" Danny asked pointedly.

"Don't be ridiculous. We have some rats and gerbils, but nothing so serious as what your sister described."

Jack cast a frustrated glance around them. He stuck a hand in his pocket and pulled out something like a microscope-PDA crossbreed, pointing it at the blood, waiting as the device hummed and its screen lit up with data. "Who knows what happens in spooky woods like these? It might even be a dinosaur ghost!" Both his companions had to bite back a laugh. Jack folded his arms at them. "I don't see what's so funny. Jazz herself said she didn't think it had fur, and the eyes definitely sounded reptilian. It might be a velociraptor, or something like that."

"If we're going to start talking about dinosaurs then we might as well throw in a mutant wolf as well. The snout she described might have fit that category." Hal leaned against the house, waiting for Jack to finish with his beeping toy.

"Or a mutant bear." Jack pocketed his device, which had returned exactly nothing of value.

Danny sighed. "This is _exactly_ why nobody takes you guys seriously." Hal smiled, and Jack harrumphed petulantly. "It might not have been a ghost at all! Jazz probably just saw something perfectly normal and then… freaked out a little. Or something." It was a dumb excuse, but it was also an extremely appealing and halfway likely one. As cool as such a monster might look in pictures, Danny wasn't too hot on squaring off with it. Villains: yes. Demon-monster-killer-thingers: not if he could help it.

Around the corner of the house, the front door creaked on its hinges. "Breakfast!" Janice chirped.

XXX

Ham and eggs and bacon and hash browns and waffles and pancakes, regular and blueberry, with pure maple syrup. "I have oatmeal too, if anybody wants that."

Danny blinked. "Whoa."

Jack grabbed a plate. "Say, you wouldn't want to come and live with us for a few months, would you?" Maddie leaned over and smacked him with a magazine. Corduroy laughed, from his nest of homework on the floor. A glassless window connected the living room and the kitchen, a doorless opening allowing passage between them. The living room's fuzzy brown carpet held the dinner table, shoved up against the wall shared with the kitchen, and several easy chairs plus a couch angled around the TV. Everybody could see everybody else, which was unfortunate for Jack because it meant Maddie could aim her whack more accurately.

It was a light whack, but he rubbed his arm in mock hurt. "What?"

"Just get your breakfast, dear." She sat at the table, eating her own bacon and pancake.

Danny opted for a waffle and joined Jazz on an easy chair next to the couch. "This might not be so bad."

"They're just fattening us up," Jazz grumbled, somehow sounding reasonably cheerful in spite of her tone. "They probably called us down because they ran out of food for that monster out there."

"Nuh-uh." Cord looked up from his homework. He'd spread himself out on the thick brown carpet between the easy chairs and the television, lying on his stomach over a large-print reading book. Mostly, he'd been looking at the pictures. "They just want your Mom and Dad to help with science stuff."

Jazz kept her voice down. "What kind of science stuff?"

Cord shrugged. "I dunno."

"See?" Jazz poked Danny, who slapped away her finger. "Fattening up. I told you."

He rolled his eyes. "Sure you did, Jazz."

"So are you guys going to show us the labs today, or what?" Jack shouted from the kitchen.

"Sure! The elevator's just out back." Janice waved her fork. "How's the breakfast, by the way?"

"Great, couldn't be better."

Janice grinned. She sat across the table from Hal, with Maddie beside her. "That's nice to hear. We don't get guests very often, but I did quite a bit of cooking back in college."

"That's true," Maddie nodded. "I remember that. You made some great casseroles."

"What about the _labs?_" Jack whined, sitting down to join them.

Hal laughed quietly. "Same old Jack."

He tried to think of a retort, but Jack really hadn't known Hal Kalen too well in college. The guy had always been off on some kind of special project that nobody had ever told him about.

XXX

Hal pressed his hand to the small keybox. "Hal Kalen." On the outside, the Kalens' backyard shed looked weathered and rickety, a simple backyard construction. But as the door hissed open on a reflective white interior, it became painfully obvious that the ostensible tool shed was anything but that. Walled with white metal and lined with a panel of buttons coded with letters and numbers, the lift was big enough for all of five of them with elbowroom to spare, minus the homeworking Corduroy.

"Nice." Danny touched the wall with the flat of his hand. It felt more like rock then metal.

"The alloy is similar to titanium, only a little heavier and substantially cheaper." Hal rapped on it, producing a dull thud that left no echo. "It forms the inside walls, and reinforced concrete surrounds the exterior of the lab, including this elevator shaft. The whole complex is underground, which shields us from being seen or heard from the outside."

In other words, a huge specialized prison. Jazz wondered what they planned to do if the fail-safes ever failed. "Not very sociable, are you?"

"Technically, we are a military installation. Their secrets aren't supposed to be discovered."

The lift slowed to a stop, and the thick doors slid open on a white, fluorescent-lit technoland. Two large containment tubes dominated the room, and though both were empty their glass showed signs of frequent use. They could see their reflections in the thick glass, and a number of small scratches scores their insides. A control bank sat in front of the tubes, its panels spotted with more buttons and view screens than any Fenton equipment. In the corner to the left waited a chamber in the wall, the size of a bathroom, one circular window punched in its door, while various other machines and cluttered worktables lined the side walls. Oddly enough, the center of the room had been left empty. Even the two tubes were removed toward the back.

The place was immaculate. Jack and Maddie felt like kids at Christmas, but Danny felt a burst of instinctive panic that took him a second to tone down. For her part, Jazz registered a yellow alert on the creepiness meter. The lab seemed far too clean, and a pair of iron jaws sealed an opening to the immediate left of the elevator door. Black and yellow stripes of danger paint ridged the teeth of the opening, and both siblings suffered an intense desire to bust in there and see what there was to see. Unfortunately, Hal continued on tour-guide mode and didn't send the slightest glance at the blast door so close at hand. She guessed he'd given a tour like this more than once.

"These tubes," Hal said, leading the way into the lab. "Are used for ectoplasmic separation and recombination. They're unpleasantly crude, but basically they're giant blenders." He nabbed a tool from a workbench and bent to the metal base of one cylinder. After a second of fiddling, a plate clicked open, revealing tangled innards. "This may look like ordinary wiring, but it's not. This system carries a special class of fluids I discovered some time ago during an experiment involving ectoplasmic distillation. It's what got the government's attention."

Hal rested an arm over his knee, his expression smug. "They let us alter distinct components of an ectoplasmic source: personality, power levels, memory complexes. We can extract these things and study them individually."

"Incredible. Ectoplasm is supposed to be homogenous." Maddie bent down to take a look for herself. She had no idea where they'd gotten their equipment. It couldn't be found on any public database—that much was certain.

"Essentially, it is," Janice admitted. "But Hal's tech lets us do it virtually, with computers. Each ghost has a unique plasma signature, and it's similar to the DNA in flora and fauna, but instead of coding for physical traits it codes for personality." She beamed. "We can do all kinds of neat things with it."

XXX

A stick snapped outside. Corduroy looked up from his homework. A slow, rhythmic crunching reached his ears through a crack at the bottom of the front door. He couldn't see it through the window, but the birds outside were silent, just as they always were whenever it came around. Cord smiled. That's how he could tell it wasn't a bear. The birds chirped for bears. He sat up, letting the book smack shut as he ran to open the door.

XXX

"What kinds of things can you do with it?"

"Well, take a look at this device over here." Janice gestured to the chamber they'd seen earlier, the tempered glass of its portal reflecting inquisitive faces. "We can put anything in there, animal or human, living or ghost, and get an immediate readout of its plasma signature."

"And that's… helpful?" As cool as they were making all this sound, Danny had yet to see any practical application for it.

"Very much so." Hal popped open the door to reveal bare, sturdy innards. The chamber extended back into the wall, forming a room about the size of a boxcar. "Once you have the plasma signature you can use it to isolate ectoplasm from the biological material. That's the difference between this chamber and the tubes. Here it's strictly study-and-separate, but those two other tubes can physically alter plasma composition, provided the chamber can give us its initial state. The process is lethal to living organisms, but it works just fine on ghosts or half-ghosts."

Danny's attention had been wandering, but he perked up immediately at that. "Half-ghosts?"

Janice waved away the issue. "They're very rare. We haven't found any natural ones, but we've created several ghost-animal hybrids."

Danny peered inside the chamber. There were no detection instruments that he could see. A small bomb couldn't have dented its interior, and had the walls been any color but white the thing could have passed as either a decompression or a torture chamber. "What do you do with those ghosts? The half-and-half ones, I mean."

"We destroy them." Hal smiled slightly at Danny's surprise. "Such creatures are intractable. Ghosts are controllable, and living things are controllable. Mixtures of both, while they suffer both plasmic and animal weaknesses, also exercise a mix of plasmic and animal strengths. The biomaterial boosts ectoplasmic power levels exponentially, and the ectoplasm strengthens the biomaterial to near invulnerability." Hal laughed, and the hair rose on Danny's neck. "You see, there's a reason this lab is built like a bomb shelter."

"Oh." Danny decided he was done asking questions, at least for the moment. His parents exchanged a few questions about the technical specifications which the Kalens happily answered, and Jazz even cut in with a question of her own. A strangely convenient question, Danny thought.

"Have you found any other kinds of ghosts?"

Janice bent up from a control panel, where she'd been showing Maddie a set of circuit diagrams. "Like what?"

"Well, ghosts that can change all the way between animal and ghost. The kind you were talking about before basically stay stuck on the barrier between the two. Is that right?"

Janice cleared her throat and nodded to her husband, who caught the look and frowned at the floor a moment before answering. The presence of his self-control was never more obvious. Jazz could practically hear the machinery whirring in his head. "That's an area of great interest to us right now," he answered. "It's one of the main reason we called you all up here, because we've been stuck on a problem in precisely that area for quite some time now."

"What's the problem?" Maddie had a hand on her hip and looked about ready to take apart a small spacecraft, her own attitude miles from Hal's cautious words and Janice's own mute patience.

"The tools we have here are able to separate just about any organism into plasmic and biological components. But there are some that we haven't been able to crack." They followed the Kalens to a safe at the opposite side of the wall. Hal knelt with his typical rigidity and opened it while Janice held her breath. He reached in and took out a test tube, sealed at the top with a tightly screwed cap. "This, is the problem." The liquid inside raged blue and black, moving like bottled fire and glowing more intensely than any light, artificial or natural. It threw the lab around them into a lesser dimension, and while nothing around them changed physically, the azure-black brilliance of the little vial made the everyday matter around them appear bland and less real, a carboard cutout of the vial's vivid essence. The arrogant little vial drew the eyes and awe of them.

"What is that?" Whatever it was, Jack wanted some.

"This is matter from the ghost we've yet to separate. There's something different about this extract that makes it unique from all others we've encountered." Hal tapped it with a finger. The fluid drew back and then surged against the site of the disturbance. "And circumstances have made it necessary that we decode it as soon as possible."

"The money's impatient?" Maddie clucked her tongue. "It's a shame. I ran into a foundation that wanted rush jobs. It's a shame, with such a unique specimen."

"That does it," Jack muttered. He _really _wanted his equipment now. "I'm going to ring those guys at the post office and see what the delay is."

Maddie excused herself to follow Jack up the elevator. "We'll be right back."

"Take your time," Janice offered.

Danny and Jazz waited as their parents hummed upward in the sterile white box of the elevator. Janice went to adjust some settings on the chamber, and Jazz pretended to busy herself at a workbench, looking with mild interest at the partially assembled machines, being careful not to touch. With his parents gone, Danny wanted a closer look at that vial. Even he didn't bleed that stuff. "Do you know anything about… that?"

Hal tipped his head. "No. Not much. It's very pure." He looked down at Danny. "Do you want to see?"

"Sure." Danny took it from Hal and held it cautiously in the palm of his hand. The color distracted him, but in a pleasant kind of way, something like watching a familiar show on television. The vial felt cold and hot at once, and the strange tingling sensation reminded him somewhat of his own projectile plasma. He took his eyes off it long enough to ask about that. "Does it ever lose the color or get… less cold?"

Hal smiled. "Good question. Ectoplasm dies without a will to drive it. Lesser kinds wear out in a couple days, but this sample will last for several weeks."

"Oh." That meant they had to replenish it, which meant they had regular access to whatever produced this stuff… "Hey, where did you get this?"

"You're not going to like the answer to that." It wasn't so much a threat as a mild, almost disinterested warning.

"Tell me anyway."

"We got it from the thing your sister saw outside her window."

Danny's mouth dropped open. Jazz had heard it too, and she froze where she stood. "You're kidding." She shook her head, disgusted as she stomped over to join them. "You knew all along exactly what I'd seen, and you didn't bother to tell me?"

Hal shrugged. "I didn't see a reason to worry you. The monster is under our complete control."

The liar! Hal had told Danny that he didn't know what it was, but whatever it was could use a lesson. "So bring it over here and let me knock it around!"

"And how exactly would you do that?" Caught in his threat, Danny didn't say a word. Hal plucked the vial from his hands. "That's what I thought."

"This morning, you told me you didn't know what it was."

"What do you think would have happened if I'd told you? All four of you would have gone bananas and tried to kill it, effectively destroying twenty years of government-funded research. For which you may have conceivably been jailed," Hal snapped.

"Conceivably," Danny mumbled.

Maddie's voice crackled through a panel next to the elevator. Hal turned from Danny and punched in some enigmatic command in the keypad near the elevator. Machinery whirred, and Danny's parents stepped out an instant later. "They say the equipment is on its way." Jack sighed at the Kalens' lab. "I guess it can wait."

"Hopefully we can keep you busy." Janice tilted her head in the general direction of the massive amounts of equipment surrounding them. She glanced down at the kids. "Why don't you both go up and keep Cord company while the parents talk shop?"

"That's a good idea." Maddie gave them a fraction of her attention, the bulk of it occupied by something like a grossly deformed trowel. Whatever it was, she found it delightful. "You know how your father is once he gets… excited." Jack had already started to dig through a nearby toolbox. Janice cringed at the mess he was making.

Hal returned the vial to its safe against Danny's mute defiance. "Don't worry about a thing. I'll get your parents up to speed and see you two later." The thick doors of the elevator slid shut, and the small room bounced as pulleys and pressure systems carried them topside.

Jazz glared at nothing in particular. "That guy is a dirt bag."

"I guess I have to agree with you on that." Too bad. The monster really existed after all, but he didn't see why Hal hadn't told them about it first thing. In the lab, he'd said they could control it, and since his family was still alive Danny supposed that had to be partially true. On the other hand, since Hal hadn't mentioned it right away, he must have assumed it would stay out of sight. Which, clearly, it had not. "This could be a very bad thing."

Jazz rolled her eyes. "Ya think? These people are nuts. School would be better than this." The thick doors slid open on the Kalens' backyard, and Danny and Jazz headed for the kitchen door straight ahead. She frowned slightly, looking without quite seeing the house before them. They were both a long way from civilization if anything went wrong. The springs on the kitchen door creaked as Danny pulled it open. The cheerful yapping of a children's program drifted out to greet them, and Cord peered at them over the sofa cushions.

"Hiya!" He climbed over the top and hit the floor, his blonde bowl cut jiggling at the motion. "You guys want to play or something?"

Jazz smiled. "Maybe later. I'm going for a walk."

"You sure that's a good idea?" Ideally, Danny would have liked to get this whole 'monster' thing worked out before anybody did any wandering. With their most effective equipment in transit, he wasn't exactly secure in his status as the Fenton family back-up plan. Not to mention the fact that his parents might start to wonder if Amity's guardian mysteriously turned up in Michigan.

Nevertheless, Jazz brushed him off. "Look at Corduroy. He's still around, and we need to know more. A lot more. Besides, I'm just going down to the lake."

"Jazz…" It was no good. She shut the door on him, her feet crunching on the leaves outside as the sound of her footsteps retreated. Danny sighed and plunked down on the couch, watching the happy random little colorful people bounce along to some awkward tune while praising the number six. "You're lucky you're an only child, Cord."

"That's what Mom and Dad say." He climbed up on the couch and stood on the cushions, taking a seat on the top cushions. Danny entertained a fleeting concern that he would fall and crack his head, but he figured if Cord was on the friendly side of hell's angels then he could probably be trusted to balance himself on the cushions of his own sofa.

"Do you know anything about that thing that Jazz saw?"

Cord bit his lip and shook his head, kicking his feet in time with the TV's song. "Nope!"

"Are you sure?" Danny looked up at him, but Cord merely giggled and smiled toothily.

"Yup!"

"Great." Danny grabbed the remote from between the sofa cushions and looked for something more interesting than the joy of Mr. Sun. His options included the weather channel, a Canadian news station, more kids' shows, another weather channel, some kind of medical emergency nonsense, and a station devoted entirely to the care and feeding of animals. Life had apparently decided to hate him for the duration of this little vacation. Danny settled for the medical channel, where the same tongs he occasionally used to flip eggs were being used to remove somebody's cherry-red internal organs. "Your parents have some weird TV channels."

"They say the other shows are bad for me."

It was hard to imagine how spleen removals could be constructive. "What about movies or reality TV? Don't you get any of that?" There didn't appear to be a VCR or DVD player in the vicinity, so no movies. Now that Danny thought about it, he hadn't seen a normal computer around anywhere either.

"We just have this." Corduroy grabbed the remote away and turned it back to Kiddieland, where insanely happy people were praising the educational value of one's fingers. "Pretty cool, huh?"

"Fantastic." Danny took back the remote and switched off the handicapped television. "Did you say there were things to do around here?"

Cord pouted at the TV before answering. "I guess we could play tag."

Danny hadn't played that game since fifth grade. "Tag?"

"Me and my dad play sometimes. One person's 'it' and the other person—"

"No, I know how to play. Don't you think it would be kind of easy for me to catch you, though?" _Monster in the woods_ Danny thought.

"That depends." Cord smiled, and his eyes shimmered with something Danny had never seen before. When he tried for a closer look, it disappeared. "How strong are you?"

"How strong… Wait, what?" He could have sworn that glimmer was real.

Cord just giggled. "Don't worry. You're like me; I know. I bet they left part of you at home, huh? We're not supposed to talk about it, but we know the truth." The glimmer darted through his eyes once more. "Right?"

Danny reflexively scooted toward the other end of the couch, putting some distance between himself and the creepy little boy next to him. "Did I miss something?"

Cord grabbed his arm and tugged him off the couch, towards the door. "Oh, come on. Let's play tag!"

XXX

Jazz paced around the lake, following the yellow-brown strip of beach up the path that led to the docks. The planks stretched out in front of her, their weathered, knotted sides homely and reliable in spite of their age. Beneath them the lake water rippled calmly, without waves, reaching from the old dock to the other side of the bay. Farther down the beach, the water twisted through a narrow neck and met with the wider lake beyond. The water glinted turquoise in the sun, which had long risen to the top of the sky. Clouds would drift across it periodically, casting the bay into shadow and bright light in turn.

The forest behind Jazz paid no mind to such changes in radiance. The trees clumped together all along the lake, growing denser still as one looked deeper into the forest. There the light was controlled on a sliding bar, growing lighter or darker with careful continuity according to the hours of the day, not the moods of the clouds. Nothing brightened or darkened suddenly in there, but where Jazz stood the sun shone strong, and she felt safe. A path ran out to the mouth of the bay, and she left the dock to follow it, kicking off her sandals for the soft dirt. She could collect them on the way back.

The wind played through her long hair, and Jazz felt herself relax into a smile. The Kalens couldn't have chosen a better spot to isolate themselves. There must be fishing, and snow in the winter, and Cord had said that there were many things in the woods that entertained. She imagined Thoreau could have fallen in love with such a place, although those mountains did look a little dark on the horizon. Had Thoreau believed in karma? She didn't think so, but Jazz didn't know for certain.

The Kalens. They lived with their nice white house with Janice, their people-pleasing housekeeper and mother figure. Hal might as well have been cut from stone and his son…? Jazz bit her lip. She still didn't know about Corduroy, but he fit into this somewhere. She'd have to ask Janice about it later.

Jazz reached the pointed lip of the bay and looked out on its lake. She couldn't see the horizon, and the woodsy setting went from quaint to threatening. They really were alone out here. Far be it from here to wish others harm, but maybe it wasn't so bad having a whole town of potential targets to surround you. The vast empty lake and the stern hard forest might as well have painted a sign over her head: foreign intruder HERE. Small waves splashed against the sand, and a little farther down the beach, a thick white bone gleamed, its surface slick with water-wear. Jazz didn't turn around immediately, though that was her first impulse. Instead, she forced herself to walk farther and—squinting reluctantly—picked up the bone between thumb and forefinger. It was lighter than she'd thought, but every bit as creepy. She let it plunk to the ground. Her skin crawled as she began to head back, picking up her pace as she returned to the path.

She had to get her sandals. As Jazz stooped to pick them up, a light gurgle drifted through the air. She froze and listened for more, realizing with a shock of panic that, save for that one mysterious gurgle, the woods around her were dead silent. Jazz turned her head slowly, very slowly, towards the lake. A small vortex swirled and disappeared, and the sounds of the birds returned to the forest.

XXX

"Now, cover your eyes. Don't look, stop looking!"

Danny sighed a long-suffering sigh and did as he was told. He'd let Corduroy drag him into the forest, out of sight of the house, and prop him up against a thick old tree for the purpose of a second-grade game that had a decent chance of ending badly at best, in disaster at worst. At least the mist was gone, and the light was neither too dark nor too light. Danny supposed it wasn't so bad. He could catch Corduroy without trouble, so unless he decided to let the kid win, this game wouldn't last that long. All things considered, it was a pretty good place to meet trouble if trouble decided to show.

"Now you count to ten and see if you can catch me." Danny pressed his folded arms into the tree trunk, hiding his eyes in the crook of one elbow. Behind him, he heard Cord backing away. "Okay, ready, go!"

Danny counted evenly, speeding it up a little as the numbers rose. "Eight nine TEN! Ready or not, here I come!" Had he really said that? Old habits came back fast, but his mild embarrassment evaporated as Danny realized that Corduroy had disappeared without a trace. The kid must have hidden behind a tree or something, because Danny didn't see him. "Uh, Cord?"

"You have to run if you want to catch me!"

The sound came from somewhere on his left, and it came from a surprising distance. Danny took off sprinting. "How did you get so far away?"

"You should know that!"

Danny changed his direction again, bounding over a log in his haste, his sneakers making a racket in the leafy rubbish carpeting the ground. The forest didn't measure distance like a town. You could see yourself moving in a town. Different buildings passed you by and different people passed you by, but a forest was just trees, trees, and more trees. It got frustrating quickly. "Cord, where are you?"

"Aw, you're not playing it right." Danny whirled, and where nothing had been before, Danny saw Cord. The kid had materialized from Planet Nowhere. As Danny watched, he took off with superhuman speed. The little squirt was a blur, and Danny lost him again.

"How did you…!" Danny paused. Something kept nagging at him, and he thought Cord was right. He should be able to figure this out. Scratching through his memory as Corduroy whizzed all around him, Danny suffered a blinding flash of the obvious as he remembered Corduroy's words. _You're just like me._ The kid hadn't been talking about other kids, he'd been talking about ghost powers! That put an interesting spin on this little vacation, but it raised more questions than answers. "How did you know about me? Did you tell anybody?" Danny tried not to shout.

"No." Once again, Corduroy favored Danny by appearing within decent speaking distance. "You mean you didn't know about me?"

"Should I have?"

"I thought you would." Cord frowned. "Weird. Hey, just chase me, alright?"

"Corduroy, this is a very important secret. Nobody can know about me, okay?"

"I don't see what the big deal is. My dad already thinks there's something weird about you anyway."

"Cord, time-out. Come here a second." Dubiously, Corduroy obeyed. Danny tried to think of something that would make sure a ten-year-old with bad judgment and a big mouth wouldn't accidentally ruin his life. "Back in my town, I'm kind of a… hero."

Cord's mouth formed a perfect O. "A superhero?"

Jackpot. "Yes. And I have to protect my secret identity, otherwise people will try to catch me so they can lock me up or hurt the people I know. So you can't tell anybody, alright?"

"That's soooo cool!" Corduroy bounced excitedly, the sheer coolness busting from him in a happy little jig. "I wish I could do that!"

"Just remember, you can't tell _anybody_." Danny spoke in a hushed whisper, although Corduroy's enthused reaction made him want to do the joyful jig right alongside the younger boy. Danny's story was true, and Corduroy's reaction was honest. Rarely did he have the opportunity for such pleasures.

"So you'll play tag with me now? You'll use your… powers, just so long as I don't tell?"

"I don't know about that." Danny looked wistfully back toward the house, or where he guessed the house might be. "How far away are we?"

"Far enough. Nobody's going to discover your secret identity." Cord beamed like a two-hundred-watt bulb. "My parents can stay down in that lab for hours and hours and hours!"

Danny chuckled. "I hear you." He thrust his fists in the air and changed into his phantom form, the white rings sweeping along his body and bleaching his air, touching his eyes, and giving him a much more impressive outfit.

"Wow." Corduroy shook his head. "I can't do that."

"Time-in!" Danny tagged Cord and blasted off into the forest.

"Flying? No fair!" Danny laughed and spared a glance back. Corduroy was hot on his tail, his feet a blur against the ground, his blonde hair plastered back against his head and his dark eyes narrowed into the wind. Far from left behind, Cord was actually gaining. Dirt, leaves, and twigs flew up behind him in a spiking cloud of detritus, and Danny headed up, angling into the trees. Cord bit his lip, squinting into the air. He launched off a rotting log, punching a hole in the moldy thing as he went airborne. Cord shot into the air, arms splayed out behind him, leting his feet pound into the thick sturdy trunks of the dense trees surrounding them. He timed it with the muscles in his calves and the impeccable sense of balance in his ears, taking just long enough to catch himself before vaulting off like a remote controlled rubber ball, just as his father had taught him. He couldn't fly, but he could jump like nobody's business. With a final soaring leap, Cord stretched out his hand and closed it around Danny's ankle.

Danny gasped and wrenched away, the touch throwing him off-balance in addition to catching him completely by surprise.

"Is that all you've got?" Corduroy dashed into the distance, laughing, with Danny right behind him.

XXX

Several hours later they pushed the door open and stumbled into the living room, hooting with laughter and making a beeline for the kitchen. "Water…"

"Where were you guys?" Jazz popped up from the sofa, where she'd been waiting and reading by herself for entirely too long. "And what do you mean water? I hope nothing happened, because I'm sure I saw something in that bay."

"Was it a monster?" Danny grinned.

"No, no, it was just a… ripple, actually."

"Oh a ripple." He and Corduroy snickered. "We'll just call out the cavalry for that one, won't we Jazz?"

Jazz set her book down, wondering if Danny had been hit in the head with something, like a cinderblock. "Danny, did you get brainwashed?"

"Endorphins." Corduroy tugged open the fridge. "Mom says endorphins are—"

"Runner's high, yes I know." She noticed for the first time that both their faces were red and sweating. "Seriously, what were you two doing?"

"Playing tag. Lighten up, Jazz." Danny splashed his face with water from the sink, and Jazz wrinkled her nose. Janice had to cook at that sink. Cord caught sight of her miffed expression and did the same thing.

Jazz groaned and padded over to the kitchen-living room window. "'Lighten up Jazz'? Danny, there's—"

He threw a cup on the table and sighed. "Yes, a monster, I know. I'm looking into it."

Corduroy nodded earnestly, but he was clearly picking up an unhealthy tendency to take after Danny in the 'Jazz Respect' zone. "Don't worry. We got it covered."

Jazz got right up in her brother's face. "You—" she said, pointing.

Danny cast an annoyed glance at her intruding finger and poked her in the forehead. Jazz yelled and stumbled backward, which gave Cord and Danny enough room to scurry past her, snickering like the irritating little male juveniles they were. They clattered up the ladder to Corduroy's room, where much more raucous laughter quickly broke out.

Jazz growled and considered calling up the parents, but she decided they weren't worth it. She retreated to her couch and her book. The ceiling above her thumped with two pairs of footsteps, making it more difficult to concentrate, but she managed. Finally though, there was just one pair of bouncing, thumping, jumping steps that made the glass quiver. The regularity of the noise made it impossible to ignore, and between that and the vibration Jazz felt like her skull was imploding.

"Hey Jazz, can you hear me now?" Corduroy's delighted question came through the walls with infuriating clarity, and Jazz heard her own brother laugh shamelessly before the noise stopped and they settled down to unintelligible muttering. Which was a considerable improvement, as far as Jazz was concerned. Those two had to learn to play Monopoly, or she might just ask the monster if it took requests.

The thought brought up an image of the orange-eyed monster with a mike it its hand, singing karaoke. She laughed at that, and then she laughed at Cord's obnoxious little thumping. Something was going on, but whatever it was seemed willing to wait, for the moment at least. For the first time since she'd got back from her walk, Jazz stopped listening for terror at the door and returned to the comfortable couch and the crinkling pages of her book, and the boys continued to chatter overhead.

XXX

Danny twitched awake to the sound of pattering feet. He blinked in the darkness and squinted at Corduroys' bed—empty. At his feet, the trapdoor slid shut, and he heard what could only be the light, near-silent footsteps of Corduroy on the ladder below. Danny crawled from his covers and suffered a moment's indecision. He still didn't know where Cord got his powers, but he seemed okay from the afternoon they'd spent goofing around. And Danny was very, very tired from all that goofing around. That kid could _run_.

Nevertheless, he elected to haul himself out of bed for the grand purpose of preventing somebody from kicking his butt later. Corduroy may not be evil outright, but his entire wacko family obviously kept some gag rules. Danny switched to ghost and blinked invisible, sinking through the floor to follow Cord's small frame to the screen door in the kitchen. He held his breath as the child stopped, pinning him with a puzzled look. "Danny?"

Maybe Corduroy couldn't fly, but he had a leg up on Danny in terms of instinct. His cover blown, Danny reappeared. "Where are you going?"

Corduroy frowned. "You're not supposed to see me. Dad said for me not to tell you anything, and if he finds you—"

"I shared my secret with you, Corduroy. It's my job to protect people, but in order to do that I need to know what's going on."

Corduroy chewed his lip, his brow wrinkled in thought. Finally, he looked up decisively at Danny. "You have to stay invisible."

Danny nodded and faded from sight. Corduroy smiled and left the house, heading for the shed. He pressed his own small palm to the keypad, stating his name in a voice that sounded oddly formal. The doors slid open, and Danny followed him down.

Hal waited at the bottom. Danny focused all his energy on silence.

Corduroy's father knelt and embraced him in a quick hug. "You did well today, didn't you?"

"Yes Dad. I didn't say anything, and they won't get scared again."

Danny felt sorry for Corduroy. The lie came out more smoothly than the truth ever would have, but he couldn't decipher the last part. He focused back on the conversation.

"Good. Now Corduroy, I know you're used to our weekend trips, but we can't do any of those. Not while the Fentons are here. Do you understand?"

Corduroy didn't. "But you promised we'd always—"

"I know I did, but these are very impulsive people. You're a secret, and we can't let them see all of you or they'd be very, very upset with both of us."

Tears gathered in Corduroy's eyes, and his arms sagged. "But I—"

"NO, Cord. Understand?"

"Why can't I go out?" he exploded. "Why can't I! Why do we live out here in nowhere? I can't even do anything, but Danny and his dumb sister get to be around other kids all the time. We had so much fun today!" Corduroy started to sob, and his damning words echoed horribly in the slick twilight of the lab. "We had so much fun!"

Hal rose above him like a darker shadow. "You're dangerous. There are those who might think you a weapon. You have no self-control and your mental processes are inferior. Until we can _fix that_, you'll remain here."

"I want Mom! Mom doesn't say that, Mom says I should go out!"

"Mother doesn't appreciate the gravity of the situation," Hal said through gritted teeth. Corduroy started to shriek, tears streaming down his face. Hal put a hand to his forehead and slid it through his hair, staring at his son with more pity and anguish than Danny would have thought possible. Hal knelt down and took Cord in his arms, and the boy clung desperately to his father.

At that, Danny decided he'd seen enough. He flew back to his room and phased through the floor, crawling under the covers, feeling a whole slough of things that would have made a lot more sense to Jazz, he was certain. This had been a whole lot simpler when Hal was just another enemy to outwit. Now, it gave him a headache and made it next to impossible to get back to sleep. If Hal was telling the truth—and this time Danny felt certain that he had—then there really was a good reason for Corduroy to be imprisoned at the far edge of the world. Danny could imagine the details all he liked, but he couldn't accept the verdict of isolation. His friends meant too much to him, and the situation hit too close to home. In another time, he might have been Corduroy.

Some time later, the trapdoor creaked open and Cord slipped into the room on loud, careless feet, breathing in hiccups and raspy sniffles. "Do you see?" He radiated bitterness.

"No," Danny admitted. "But I'm starting to."

* * *

A/N: Every once in a while I manage to write a chapter that pleases me, even if it isn't a masterpiece, and this is one of them. Yay for Cord, my best OC ever! Today's bribe (which I'd rather not include but will anyway, just because the idea is so awesome): Danny-head pez dispensers, available in human or ghost mode for your tasty pleasure. 


	4. Silence of the Lambs

A/N: Yah, I'm gunna finish this. Turns out I'm a C grade physicistbut an A grade writer. Go figure, neh? Also: I've only seen episodes up to The Ultimate Enemy, but I never saw TUE itself. So the story is a bit dated, but not too much. I also didn't edit this one much, because frankly I'm abit disgruntled. Yes. Fear the disgruntlement. But read this thingy and review it, first. :)

Animal House

By JadeRabbyt

SATURDAY

Into the night and through most of the morning, Danny tousled with the problem of Corduroy.

Usually the good guys and bad guys came presorted and labeled. Maybe the labels got smudged or faded, but never did they cease to exist entirely. The Kalens were a mystery wrapped up in an enigma. Danny definitely wasn't peachy with the way things were, if it meant keeping Cord isolated in this wilderness. Maybe the kid would be dangerous in a city, but Danny had seen kids who'd been kept friendless and homeschooled. If Cord had power, then he needed to learn something about responsibility, which and to do that he needed to be around other people. Danny thought it a sure bet that Cord was tangled up with Jazz's woods monster.

Danny grumbled to himself, wondering again why there weren't any nice, normal, Hawaiian ghost hunters. Seriously. Michigan? Alone in the wilderness? Was he the only one who thought that was just a sincere request for massive amounts of explosive, angry, traumatizing _disasters_?

"Hey."

He looked up at Jazz, lounging with one of her books in a cushioned recliner across the room. "Hey what?" She had one of those looks on her face. Those 'I love you because you're my brother and I want to help you' looks. Danny hated those. At least nobody else was around to hear this, since they'd all just had lunch and had since scurried off to their respective occupations. The parents had bolted back to the labs, busting with glee about imminent Progress. The Fenton gadgets were still AWOL, but that hadn't slowed anybody down, apparently. Corduroy had gone out to play somewhere, but he and Jazz had remained inside, reading and channel surfing.

His sister closed her book, a thick red one, bristling with post-its wedged between the pages. "I wonder what Corduroy's doing." Danny ignored her exaggerated nonchalance.

He mumbled an excuse, keeping his eyes on the TV. Now that he actually looked at it, the shows kinda sucked, but it was an excuse to sit back and try to think about things without going insane over them. Plus, he'd been avoiding Cord all day. Too many unknowns about that kid.

"Somebody should be out there watching him." Jazz continued to stare with that singularly irritating patience of hers. "If he gets into trouble—" Danny snickered. He couldn't help himself. "Okay," Jazz revised, rolling her eyes. "If he gets anybody else into trouble, then we have four highly irrational adults ready to go commando on a moment's notice. With ghost gadgets."

Danny took a minute to think about that one. "Oh."

Jazz nodded. "Right."

His eyes flickered over to meet hers. "It's not like I'm avoiding him. I'm just watching TV right now." The patient stare rolled over and died. "I don't know what you think I can do about this, anyway."

Jazz's dead stare rotted into a reeking, gangrenous, oozy rotten mass.

Danny threw up his hands. "What?"

"Nothing good is going to happen if you turn your back and whistle, Danny."

"What!" He hated head-meat surgeons. "I don't have any idea what you're talking about!" Hopefully his blush didn't show, or he'd really be in trouble.

His sister folded her hands. "You could at least go out and play with him. I don't know if you've noticed, but Cord hasn't been the world's happiest camper lately."

"And how's that _my_ fault?"

She smiled. "Danny, let's think. Cord is basically a normal five-year-old with a ten-year-old body. What do you think will happen if he gets pouty?"

He shrugged. "I don't know; he'll be sent to his room?"

She sighed. "Okay. He's got a five-year-old moral compass and a working relationship with a horrible monster."

Danny blinked. "So you want me to go _play _with him?"

"Couldn't hurt." Jazz opened her book. "The happier Cord is, the easier it'll be for all of us. Who knows? We might even get out of here without exploding anything."

"Don't talk crazy." Danny laughed. Jazz smiled as he stood up, stretched, and headed for the door.

XXX

The forest in the afternoon was filled with the scent of damp earth and clean water, laced with the spice of the pines and filtered through cascading sunshine. Danny grinned reflexively as he stepped off the porch and headed for the lake, sobering himself along the way. Maybe this felt like a nature hike, but he'd do well to remember it wasn't. Nevertheless, the sandy path crunched amiably as he walked, and the woods were refreshingly clear of snapped branches, spots of black blood, and other signs of monsters.

The earth floor came to an end, dropping six inches to the gritty sand of the lake. The sun glistened off the wavers, the light splashing of the water on the shore reassuring and inviting. It almost looked as if it wouldn't be cold, but Danny knew better. In a couple hours clouds and mist would banish the sun and freeze the air; in fact, this was the best weather he'd seen yet. Danny's smile faltered. Wasn't this the part where the curious explorer was usually savaged by something horrible? He looked behind him at the forest, which continued to insist that it was the world's best location for a children's movie, totally free of anything malignant whatsoever.

"Yeah, right," he muttered. Danny made for the water, feeling the grainy sand creeping beneath his shoe laces.

A stick lay a few yards from the water, a branch. Danny kicked it with his foot, glancing peripherally over the waves. Nope, nothing suspicious out there, except of course for the fact that there was nothing suspicious, which was, in a way, extremely suspicious. He checked out the stick again. Around it the sand had been disturbed, and it was hard to make out precisely what had gone on, but the way the sand fell away toward the water, and humped on its other side, the one facing the shore, Danny got the impression the wood had been thrown from the water.

Which meant, he figured slowly, that Cord was probably in the water. Danny groaned and looked over the water, twinkling in the sun, twinkling with suspicious innocence in the sunlight. He rolled his eyes and went to the trees, getting himself decently out of sight—just on principle—to go ghost. He shimmered invisible, diving without a ripple into the lake.

Where it was only slightly easier to see than if he'd still been human. The light helped, but there was so much silt that anything more than a couple feet below the surface was inscrutable. "Cord!" he called. "Corduroy, are you down here?" Probably not, Danny thought. He made himself visible and wandered farther down and out.

From away on his left, deep down in the murk, a silver disk flashed and winked out. Danny sped toward it, but whatever it was had fled before he got there. He wasn't sure he'd seen it until Cord showed up at his side.

The kid floated there in his blue swimming trunks, grinning toothily at Danny. He didn't seem to be breathing; at least there weren't any bubbles. Danny motioned to the surface, and Corduroy nodded and followed him up.

Danny wiped his hair back, forgetting that ghosts didn't get wet. "Cord?"

Corduroy's eyes narrowed. "Yeah? What?"

"Uh, down there, was there anything with you?"

He shook his head, droplets of water flitting back to the lake. "Nope. Only me."

Cord had used that same tone when he lied to Hal, Danny remembered. "Because if there was, I wouldn't mind. I'd actually like to learn about your powers!"

"I'm not supposed to tell you any more. You'll make trouble." Cord's voice melted into shame. "That's what Dad says." He looked up. "Where were you? I wanted to play, but you weren't there."

"I'm sorry, Cord. I was busy." Actually, he'd been seeing how far away the nearest microcosm of civilization was. He must have flown for miles and seen nothing but cabins.

Cord dropped his glance to the water. "Yes." His face wrinkled a pout, the precursor to tears, before dipping below the water, managing to blow a stream of bubbles. Carefully, Danny reached down and eased him above water again.

"Come on. I'm on your side, remember?" Jazz would be much better at this kind of thing. "What's going on?"

"You're not," Cord burbled, half his mouth underwater. "I'm not supposed to play with you. I'm not supposed to do anything fun."

"Wasn't yesterday fun?"

Cord looked up, considering that. "Sort of. I wasn't supposed to."

Danny smirked, hoping he wasn't about to make things exponentially worse. "Cord, when you have powers, what you're supposed to do doesn't really apply as often. For example," Danny said, dividing himself in two. "Are normal people supposed to do this?" he chorused. Cord grinned and shook his head. "Or this?" he added, creating a shimmering arc of plasma between his two selves. Cord laughed. Danny reconstituted himself. "You shouldn't use your power if it hurts somebody or if it's just to show off, but its okay to goof around a little."

"I can't shoot lasers," Cord mumbled, through a smile. "Why don't I get lasers?"

Danny shrugged. "Search me."

He thought about that. "And you get a costume. I don't have a costume."

"You could probably make one…" Danny suggested.

"No. It'd look bad on us."

About a billion red flags went up. There's that 'us' again… "Who is the other us, Cord? I've been wondering about that."

"Oh." Cord stopped. He looked up at Danny. "I didn't mean that. Let's go play tag!" He started for the beach.

"Wait a minute, then what did you mean?" Danny caught up with him, trying not to sound urgent.

Cord's eyes started to water. "You mean… you don't want to play with me?"

Little kids sucked so much sometimes. "No, I want to play." He followed Cord onto the beach and zapped into human form. The innocence of the forest had somehow managed to turn ironic, bordering flat-out insulting.

XXX

Dinner started normally, another delicious concoction by Janice Kalen. Today they had ribs. Ribs! Jack wondered aloud several times how hillbillies like them got hold of such things. Hal merely smiled and tilted his glass in satisfaction. The bulk of the chatter centered on the day's work. As the kids sat at their end of the table, mostly quiet, it occurred to both Jazz and Danny that these people had no conception of things that were interesting outside of work. Jazz had the impression that Janice might, but she was married to a control freak and both her parents were six, emotionally, which meant that she and Danny spent the time wondering what they were talking about, listening for the recurring words 'volatile,' 'unstable,' and 'mysterious.' Every thirty seconds, two of the three were used.

Cord was sitting to Danny's right, and Jazz to his left. He didn't bother much about her sister, who was off in her own little world, from the looks of it. Cord, on the other hand, was clearly plotting something. Danny knew this, because he had seen people plotting on numerous occasions. In eighth grade, he'd seen Tucker plotting something, pulling in his lower lip, mouth curling into a smile, eyes narrowing mischievously—and a minute later Valerie Gray had yelped, having been mysteriously stung by a flying rubber band. He's suspected that crazy school shrink was plotting something when she called him in for counseling, and whoops!—she turned out to be a grade A villain-ghost who'd tried to kill his sister and suck the life from his school. Danny had seen more plotting than he'd willingly admit to, so he knew it when he saw it, and Corduroy Kalen was plotting. Danny knew he shouldn't have said that stuff earlier, even if it had only been to cheer Cord up.

Dragging his fork through his mashed potatoes, frowning nastily at his veggies, Cord plotted. He smiled once or twice, and Danny was fine with an evil grimace, but when a person started to smile or cackle maniacally—that was when you had trouble. Fortunately, Danny wasn't the only one with an eye for this. Janice, he'd noticed, had been shooting him dark, worried glances throughout the meal. At last, she put her fork down.

"Corduroy? What's wrong, you haven't eaten much."

"I like it," he insisted. "I'm just not hungry." Danny watched closely. So, he noticed, did Jazz.

The chatter between Hal and Jack ebbed. Cord's father pinned him with a look. "Is anything wrong? Do you have any questions about our discussion this morning?"

Janice discreetly rolled her eyes, her face turned away from her husband. Cord shook his head. "Nope. I got it."

Hal smiled coldly. "Good. I'll make it up later; I promise."

Maddie laughed nervously as normalcy descended, everyone going back to their meal and techie-speak. "Well, what was that all about?"

"Oh," Janice shook her head. "Cord has some problems with his homeworks. Doesn't want to do them, that sort of thing."

"I know exactly what you mean," Maddie sighed. "Jazz is sensational, but we have to nudge Danny along. It's just a teenage boy thing. Cord's not too far from that, is he?"

Janice hesitated. "No… I guess not."

"You wouldn't believe it, but they grow up fast," Maddie continued.

"Mrs. Kalen lies," Jazz muttered to Danny. "Something's wrong here."

Danny smiled. "So? You're the sensational one. You figure it out."

Jazz sneered as Danny laughed. But she was right, obviously. It'd take a moron to think that things were peachy, and he was vaguely considering tying Cord to his bedpost. You had to be edgy when people start hiding stuff, and when 'stuff' consisted of a demonic lake monster… things could get interesting, really fast.

XXX

That night, as Danny and Cord bedded down, Danny resolved to keep his eyes open. The dusk long gone, vibrant darkness circled the room, making room for the quiet breathing of the two boys. Sleep coiled around Danny, but it didn't take much effort for him to stay awake. He slept on his side, the better to see Cord's own bed. The night wore on.

Danny's mind flew back home to Amity, to Tucker and Sam and the movie he'd missed. The city air with its foul dust and smog, so different from the delicate purity of the atmosphere of the bay, the rumbling engines of cars and the roaring ones of the big trucks: people everywhere, hurrying to and fro. Here at Paw Bay was a rich void. No people and no buildings, convenience stores or theatres or police cars, all those replaced with unassuming nature. No neon on the trees, no display cases for the water-smoothed stones. So many things were missing, up here, yet in a wild and nameless way, there was so very much more. Skyscrapers screamed the triumph of man, but the mountains proclaimed eternity.

Late in the night as Danny fought the viper Sleep, it was easy to think of these things. Wilderness was teacher to Cord, the bustle of people the mentor to Danny. How would it be like for him, Danny wondered, if he had grown up out here, without Sam or Tucker? Would he be the same, or a better question, would he even recognize himself? He couldn't keep awake much longer.

Danny faded intangible and, yawning, checked on Cord. His breathing was even, his eyes shut. If there was to be a fight, it'd happen tomorrow, and Danny needed sleep. He floated back to bed and got comfortable.

As Danny turned back to his sleeping bag, Cord's eyes eased open once more. The boy watched the wall, quiet, and waiting.

---

A/N: Review for a freelifetime supply of free BELGIAN WAFFLES! With whip cream and strawberries. Oh yes. (...but negative opinions will be disgruntled on)


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